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'Mehmed VI' (Arabic: محمد السادس), original name 'Mehmed Vahdettin' or 'Mehmed Vahideddin', (January 14 1861 – May 16 1926) was the 36th and last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, reigning from 1918–1922. The brother of Mehmed V, he succeeded to the throne as the eldest male member of the House of Osman after the 1916 suicide of Abdülâziz's son Yusuf Izzetin^[1], the heir to the throne. He was girded with the Sword of Osman on July 4, 1918, as the thirty-sixth ''padishah''.
World War I had been a disaster for the Ottoman Empire. British forces had occupied Baghdad and Jerusalem during the war and most of the Empire was to be divided among the European allies. At the San Remo conference of April 1920, the French had been given a mandate over Syria and the British had been given one over Palestine and Mesopotamia. On August 10, 1920, Mehmed's representatives signed the Treaty of Sèvres, which recognized the mandates, removed Ottoman control over Anatolia and İzmir, severely reduced the extent of Turkey, and recognized Hejaz as an independent state.
Turkish nationalists were angered by the Sultan's acceptance of the settlement. A new government, the Turkish Grand National Assembly, under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) had been formed on April 23, 1920, in Ankara. The government of Mehmed VI was denounced and a temporary constitution was drafted.
The nationalists' successes meant that the sultanate was abolished on November 1, 1922, and Mehmed left Istanbul, aboard the British warship ''Malaya'' on November 17. Bound for exile to Malta, Mehmed later lived in the Italian Riviera.
He died on May 16, 1926 in Sanremo, Italy, and was buried at the mosque of Sultan Selim I in Damascus.^[2] On November 19, 1922 his first cousin and heir Abdülmecid Efendi was elected Caliph, becoming the new head of the dynasty as Abdülmecid II. The Caliphate was abolished in 1924.

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Notes

1. Freely, John - Inside the Seraglio, published 1999, Chapter 16: The Year of Three Sultans
2. Freely, John - Inside the Seraglio, published 1999, Chapter 19: The Gathering Place of the Jinns

Further reading

★ Fromkin, David, 1989. ''A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East'' ISBN 0-8050-0857-8

External Link

★ interview with Neslişah Sultan, grand-daughter of the last emperor about her family's exile, on YouTube